


This Is How We Meet

by Crimson1



Category: The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Citizen Cold, Earth-2, Handcuffed Together, M/M, Meet-Cute
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-26
Updated: 2016-10-26
Packaged: 2018-08-27 01:55:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8383390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Crimson1/pseuds/Crimson1
Summary: Barry meets Citizen Cold for the first time. Tag for my chapter fic Public Enemy, Undercover Lover for the Earth-2 pairing of Barry and Lenny.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Sparksreturn](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sparksreturn/gifts).



> One, I owe you all more Public Enemy, but Sparksreturn happened to mention wanting the backstory for these two, and I remembered I'd written something for tumblr, so I polished it up a little. 
> 
> Originally a prompt from Lisellevelvet - Handcuffed. 
> 
> More Public Enemy to come! Eventually, I promise...

Barry Allen is a reporter for Picture News. Young, single, completely enamored with discovering hidden truths and proving that the unexplainable is, actually, explainable most of the time, even when meta humans are involved. 

He occasionally lives vicariously through his friends—his co-worker at the paper, Eddie, who edits the entertainment section, and his best friend since childhood, Detective Iris West. The pair is hopelessly in love with each other, but currently sneaking around behind Iris’s father’s back. Joseph can be a little protective of his daughter, and may or may not suspect that something more is going on between Iris and the writer who always happens to be at his night club appearances. 

It’s while Barry is wistfully thinking about how lucky they both are to have found someone that balances them out so perfectly, regardless of Joseph’s potential rage, that he neglects the time. He’s working an assignment for a story in the warehouse district, investigating somewhere he probably shouldn't be, at least not in the dead of night, and certainly not alone. But Barry’s a reporter! And Zoom has to be stopped. The few heroes in town need all the help they can get. 

Which is about the time Barry flattens himself to the wall at the back of the building and hunkers down to hide when he hears voices and scuffling and—oh my god, that is totally Citizen Cold, the city’s ice-themed hero, duking it out with one of Zoom’s meta human flunkies! 

Barry stays hidden as best he can, but he has to sneak a peek—it’s his job! Cold wears a sleeveless long blue duster that reaches down to his ankles, with a hood he always keeps up with white fur trimming. He wears a domino mask beneath the hood to further hide his identity, and when he attacks with his powers, his hands and arms glow blue all the way up to his elbows, sometimes frost over, sometimes cover completely in ice, and always look really well-muscled and appealing… 

Barry realizes he needs to focus on something other than Cold’s biceps as he hears the man grunt in pain. Barry usually excels at keeping his head down in general, but when Cold is blasted by the other meta into the trash can he’d had been hiding behind, his cover is blown. 

Cold is knocked out, and the meta human narrows his eyes at Barry. Shit.

“I-I’m good friends with Detective West from the CCPD, and she would be really angry if—”

“Oh can it, white hat, I’m not here to kill you or Cold,” the meta growls. “Zoom likes leaving the people of Central City with a semblance of hope he can crush. I just needed Cold out of the way.”

The meta human grabs both of them, and before Barry can scream or protest further, he finds himself handcuffed to the man he’s been idolizing for the past several months, while said man is still unconscious. 

And oh does Barry want to pull back Cold’s hood while he waits for him to wake up, to peel off that mask and find out who the infamous Citizen Cold really is. But while Barry may be a journalist, he is also a gentleman. 

About ten minutes after the meta human leaves, Cold stirs, groans, and blinks at Barry in confusion.

“Oh, uhh...hello! Mr. Cold, sir. I am so sorry about this.” Barry gestures with their handcuffed wrists, unintentionally jerking Cold to the side. “I happened to be investigating a story tonight and I...oh, uhh...you probably don’t know me, but I’m—”

"Allen, right? You’re the one who does all those stories about me.”

Barry flushes at the recognition. “Uhh...yes, sir, that’s me.”

Cold blinks a few times and shakes his head to clear it of his dizziness. He has remarkably blue eyes up close. “Our friend gone?” he asks.

“I think so.”

“So much for heroics tonight. I’d say I was distracted, but that’s no excuse.” Cold stands, helping Barry up as well, from the corner of the warehouse they were tucked into.

“Distracted?”

“I do have a life outside this gig, you know,” Cold smiles—and wow, that makes his eyes sparkle even more.

Barry clearly has no control over himself as he says, “I’d love to hear about it sometime.”

Cold pauses in assessing their surroundings to smirk at him. “Asking me out, kid?”

“Huh? N-No, I…I was asking for an interview!” Only maybe Barry was asking for more than that, since his mouth leaped ahead of his brain.

Cold flicks his eyes down and back up Barry’s body. “Too bad.” 

_Wait, what?_ “B-But I wouldn’t be opposed to—ow!” Barry jerks his wrist away from Cold, causing the man to collide with his body. He hadn’t meant to, but suddenly his wrist had started to sting from... _cold_. Oh. 

“Sorry ‘bout that,” Cold says, as the glow of blue fades from the cuffs. “Guess that option’s out. Wouldn’t want to cause any damage to your skin. Have to settle for option B. Come on.” Cold grasps Barry’s hand, the one currently attached to him anyway, which Barry assumes is to keep him from continuing to jerk them around without being mindful of the cuffs. 

And wow, is Cold’s hand warm despite having just used his powers.

“Umm...my friend is a detective,” Barry says, as Cold clears them of the warehouse and starts down a dark alley scarier than the one Barry used to get there. “She has handcuff keys.” 

“Prefer to stay out of the CCPD, kid.”

“Oh, she wouldn't...I mean, I know technically you’re a vigilante, but she’s a fan, I swear. The city appreciates what you do. She would never—”

“Thanks, kid. But I got a guy.” 

“Barry,” Barry says, because he doesn’t think Cold looks old enough to be calling him ‘kid’ even if Barry can only partially see his face.

“Right.” Cold pauses in his quick movements through the alleys of Central City to look back at him and smile. “Nice to meet you, Barry.”

Barry probably looks like an idiot with how widely he smiles in reply. 

The hard part isn’t working their way through the city—Cold seems to know all of the alleys quite well—but the moments when someone else is around and Cold holds an arm out to keep Barry back, their bodies in close contact. 

Cold is warm all over, but his body gives off something like...like a cool breeze when you step out of a warm house on a brisk day, feeling still comfortable and cozy but also invigorated by that burst of chill.

Barry so doesn’t smell deeply along Cold’s neck whenever they’re close, taking in the evergreen that radiates off of him, or allow himself to tumble into the other man a few times on purpose—which really isn’t necessary since he tumbles into him several times NOT on purpose—just to feel the line of his body beneath his form-fitting costume under the duster. 

His arms are lovely...

“Barry?”

“Huh? Yes?”

“We’re here. With a choice between risking a cop finding out my identity, and revealing it to _you_...had to go with the latter.”

“What?”

Barry’s eyes widen as they reach a back door and Cold knocks. A minute later, a large man Barry recognizes instantly as Mayor Snart’s head of security answers. 

Cold holds up his and Barry’s handcuffed wrists. “Can’t freeze it without hurting the kid. Little help?”

Rory raises an unimpressed eyebrow. “Get in here, Lenny.”

Barry is in gaping awe the entire time Rory works to get the handcuffs off of them, because...Barry is an investigator, he can put the pieces together. He feels supremely stupid he didn’t make the connection sooner, just from what he could see of Cold’s face through the mask, because the resemblance is obvious once you have additional evidence.

When their wrists are free, Leonard Snart pulls back his hood and removes his mask. He puts any photographs of him to shame, he’s so flawlessly chiseled and handsome.

Barry doesn’t know the man personally, but he certainly knows OF the mayor’s brother with a heart of gold, who stays out of the limelight while he tirelessly works to help victims of abuse get back on their feet at the city’s shelter. 

“Keep this between us, Barry, and I’ll give you that interview,” he says with a smile.

Barry glances aside, making sure Rory is out of earshot while he disposes of the cuffs. Barry can be bold; when else is he going to get an opportunity like this? So he turns back to Cold—to Snart, _Lenny_ —and says, “Add in a date, and you’re on.”

THE END...but not forever


End file.
